LINNIEUS A.ND THE LAPPS.
[To THE EDITOR 07 THE 0 SPECTATOR."] Sin,—A correspondent asks whether the Lapps of to-day are as healthy and happy a people as they were in Linnteus's time. I cannot speak of them as a race, because living as scattered as they do I imagine that the march of civilization, which has been very rapid in Scandinavia, has altered their circum- stances in some cases for the better, in others for the worse. But I can say that of all the men with whom I have spent many happy days alone in the pursuit of big game in many remote parts of the world, I have found none whose character commanded so much respect and, in my own ease, real friend- ship as a Lapp. Not only was he the best still hunter I ever met with, but his honesty, sobriety, intelligence, courage, and good manners compelled me to look on him as a real friend; and though I have the highest respect for some Norwegians and Scotch stalkers, yet none that I have known was such a real nature's gentleman as Elias Eliasson, of Namdalen.
When I first knew him be spoke but a few words of English, but picked it up with such remarkable facility that with the help of a Norsk-English translation of the Bible he was in a year or two able to converse, and to write to me, in intelligible Biblical English. The worst vice of the Lapps, as I know them, is their too great indulgence in spirits when they get the chance ; but Elias, though not a teetotaler, and formerly, as he told me, a hard drinker, bad entirely abjured the habit. His knowledge of woodcraft and his skill in hunting that very cunning beast, the elk, were superior to those of any Scandinavian I have known, and he had the knack of training dogs to be as clever as himself. Though the finding of a bear was to him an event of the highest pecuniary importance, yet he was so religions that he refused to hunt a bear with me on Saturday—which day was his Sunday, as be kept the old calendar. If anyone wishes to go among this very interesting people and learn more of their habits and life I cannot imagine a more interesting, obliging, or useful com-
Previous page
